


to always be myself

by createandconstruct



Category: Final Fantasy IX
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Nothing explicit, Post-Canon, Romance, Safe For Work, a bit of an identity crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-19 03:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19967443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/createandconstruct/pseuds/createandconstruct
Summary: “Someday I will be queen, but I will always be myself.” Perhaps such a declaration was naive at the time.To be herself... she's not sure what that truly even means.(Garnet, a girl with three names, fights to define herself. Zidane is ever supportive in the endeavor)





	to always be myself

**Author's Note:**

> Blazing Desert from the Final Fantasy X soundtrack if you'd like some music while you read

To her kingdom she is royalty.

In the morning, in the evening, in every corner of her kingdom. She is referred to as a queen. 

It’s a title Garnet never uses in her thoughts, but one she does embrace.

I am Queen of Alexandria, she often thinks.

And yet, as of late, _I am Garnet_ , is not.

Lately, she can’t shake the feeling that _Garnet_ has lost its meaning. That _Queen_ is a title while a name is not and whatever that meaning is _supposed_ to be, it has been lost to something else. Eclipsed by something greater.

Perhaps it happened because she can’t define it so easily. Perhaps because she failed to define herself - because she used her title as her meaning. Perhaps it happened when she walked the streets of Alexandria and greeted a young girl whose eyes shone like her own once upon a time and when she introduced herself as _Garnet_ the girl had simply said: _Oh!_ _The queen then!_

_I am_ , Garnet thinks and says aloud.

The distinction lost and yet still screaming inside her head.

Garnet and Queen - when had they become the same? When had they become so different? 

When was Queen the only thing the world began to see? 

There is so much more to her then that. More to her then just a single name. More to her than just a title.

_I am_ , she thinks, but _who_ exactly…? Queen and Garnet. If they are the same, then their union only leaves her less defined. Who she is... she doesn’t always know. Who she is… she can’t always title it _Garnet_. She can’t always name it _Queen_.

Because there are times in loneliness where she is neither.

Times in which she is lost in melancholy nostalgia - mind swept away to faded memories and blurry faces which fill a home she’s still learning to remember. Times in which she sings a song that belongs to _her_ and not to Garnet. 

A time before _Garnet_ became her stolen goods.

Because to her mother, she was _Sarah_.

Such a lovely name, she thinks sometimes. 

Yet when she’d stood in the shadow of the Eidolon Wall and dragged her fingers along the carving of its letters, written by a man lost to time and memory who years ago was once her father - such a sentiment had been far from her thoughts at the time.

Her first opinion of the name, the one that haunts her even now, was that _Sarah_ was just another thing she’d lost.

Often when the sun is low, scattered in shining pieces across the kingdom’s water, she tests it on her lips. Lets the sound hiss in the air, brought alive by her own voice. She shuts her eyes and tries to see it in her mind. 

Her reflection upon the water and her birth name from her lips.

They never mix.

Maybe it had been hers, but it is _her_ no longer. 

The name was taken in the storm. Cut from her like her horn. 

And yet its phantom pains remain. 

That make it impossible to truly abandon.

So she tries. In moments where she refuses to be defined by a throne - equal parts title, equal parts name - when her body blisters with the grief for her childhood and she longs to have one more chance or even just one more memory of her mother, the woman who named her and gave her life for her - Garnet cannot exist. 

So she tries Sarah. Even if she’s just a ghost.

And it pits the two against each other. Refusing to be just Garnet the Queen, and yet unable to ever again be Sarah, her memory of it smudged away like a word written in dribbling ink, so when she tries to read it to herself it comes out wrong. It’s as if her voice around its sound - the voice of Garnet - can never make Sarah right.

And so, the two names clash. And in her mind, she is incomplete.

Garnet the title, Sarah the ghost. 

To herself she is always someone different, and each someone never truly fits.

In her inner thoughts - in the early mornings when she smooths the layers of her dress before the mirror, when she peers into the dark color of her own eyes - she fails to come to terms with the recognition of her own face. She sees herself. Her face, her lips, her ears and eyes. She steps forward and runs a hand along her jaw, allows the fine hairs to prickle against her palm, searching for a detail that will explain it all. Something that will let her know.

But each time she reviews the details, she can only see them as they are.

None of which provide a name.

And when she tries the two - _Garnet, Sarah -_ it’s foreign. Even with an attempt at resolution in her head, she can’t choose between the two. Especially when neither feel like the puzzle piece she so desperately needs to fall into place.

But sometimes... she tries the third. 

Her fingers against her chin, her eyes peering back at her from the mirror, she says the one name that is somehow simple. The one that almost means every part of her - the broken parts of Sarah, the all encompassing expanse of Garnet - and somehow, it rises above the other two. 

And sometimes, it feels as if it almost fits.

She says it in her own voice, the voice that deemed it as her own, and it is the closest she gets to filling up the strange emptiness that haunts her whenever she’s faced with a reflection of herself. 

But a shoe that almost fits does not _truly_ fit.

And inevitably she moves away from the mirror. She sings her mother’s song. She hears a knock on her chamber doors and goes to find her crown.

Dagger is who she is, and yet in her day to day she can’t bring herself to use it.

Dagger is _her_ , so why can’t she feel it?

Her mind’s eye struggles to see her as something singular. It tries to see Dagger when she sees herself, to attach the name to every detail that she is and even was - but it fails. She curses her own thoughts but she can’t fight them. 

Because no matter what, parts of her belong to the other two.

By herself, Dagger is never all she is. 

And so, it doesn’t exactly surprise her when she realizes it. 

That after weeks of fighting with herself, trapped inside her own head with three versions of herself shouting to be heard the loudest until she deems one as her own - that it is outside of herself that she finds a chance at closure. A clarity she almost missed. 

To _him_ , she _is_ Dagger.

It is the name that he calls beloved and when he does she truly _is_. 

The name _she_ chose, it’s the one he chirps when she greets him in the morning. The one he shouts with laughter through the castle halls throughout the afternoon. The one he whispers to her in the dead of night. The one his lips catch upon as he rocks against her, the _her_ he calls to when she pulls him close against her skin. The third name. The name that nearly fits. 

The name that she can’t use to form her thoughts, but in his voice, feels like the one that best explains how she’d like to be thought of.

  
How she’d like to think of herself. 

Perhaps that’s why she can’t help herself that particular night, as she lies shaking with him in the aftermath. After weeks of slipping into circles within herself, when she finds this hint at understanding, a request slips from her. 

An experiment of sorts.

“Call me Garnet?” 

With her back against the pillows, his forehead against her own, his body sealed against her, their eyes locked together - a look of curiosity crosses his face.

The stray hair across her brow moves as he slides his thumb along her cheek. And without question, he smiles as he complies.

“ _Garnet_.”

The name echoes through her, against her bones. 

She can’t help what slips out next.

“Sarah.”

Her vision blurs as her eyes flutter shut. His nose brushing against her own, the two of them close enough so she hears and feels him swallow.

Garnet opens her eyes and finds him.

“ _Call me Sarah...”_

He honors her request, even if it’s just a whisper, even if he has to take a breath before he does.

“ _Sarah._ ”

Their legs are still tangled, trapping her from curling up and hiding away. She’s forced to let the name take its course. A sound that exists and shudders her spine in its utterance, even as it completely fades away. 

All the while she watches his eyes, piercing even with the dull moonlight that’s barely sneaking through the curtains. They watch her, imploring her to say more. 

She responds with her thumb against his cheek, it’s movement slow, mimicking his own. A simple caress as she takes a breath to ask of him one more. To see if they all truly feel… 

She starts simply with just, “Zidane…”

But she doesn’t even get the chance for another word.

His face, already crumbling at her touch, turns into a wrecked expression and he says it - _desperately_. Cutting her off with a noise not unlike the final whimper of a drowning man right before he’s caught beneath the tide. He brings her with him as he seals the sound against her, the tail end of its echo searing like a burn as he smashes his lips against her own like waves against the shore.

“ _Dagger—”_

Whether it’s the name or the kiss she’ll never know. 

But they fall together once again.

_And to herself she is—_

They lie together afterward, as they always do, pressed together, chest to chest, speaking only through touch and breath when he breaks the comfortable silence and asks, “Something bothering you?”

She peers up at him. He looks back. She settles upon an honest, “I’m not sure.”

“Well… there either is something or there isn’t.” He grins, brows quirking.

She considers that. “I guess there is _something_ …” she studies him. His face tilting as she does. “...but I don’t really have the words to explain it.” She places her cheek back against his chest.

Her head rises and falls with his inhale and the quiet of the room fills with the beating of his heart. It’s a gentle pause before he probes a bit further. His hand coming against her back to trace and tickle her spine. “Even if you can’t explain it… did I at least help you with… whatever it was?”

_To herself she is..._

“...a little,” she supposes, “Though I’m not…” She pulls her lips inside her mouth and squeezes them firmly between her teeth. The resolution stuck along with her words. She tries, “I’m just not sure what exactly it is I'm looking for… and, maybe, I’m not entirely sure what’s really bothering me.” She sighs, feeling very much like a scolding parent and like she’s the child being scolded. 

Even now, her mind cannot settle. Somehow, now, she’s even more confused. It feels like picking one is even harder now...

But before the frustrating constriction around the strange hole in her chest can fully form, Zidane squirms down into the blankets and her head is forced to raise off him with the sudden movement. 

She looks down at him as he lies on his back, still flaring with a calm demeanor despite the seriousness of his tone. “If you’re having trouble figuring it out maybe I could help with that?” He turns on his side as she settles beside him, folding an arm around her pillow as he props himself up on an elbow. “Lemme list some stuff off that could be bothering you and you just say yes or no until we figure out what’s on your mind.”

“I’m not so sure how well that’ll work,” she says, a soft smile slipping on her face, just a hint of skepticism laced within her voice. 

“I'm guessing you never heard the expression two heads are better than one.” She raises her eyebrows at him unimpressed. “Oh come on, you know what I’m trying to say - there’s no hurt in trying, right?” He shrugs with a smile, then immediately changes his tone, stroking his chin with his pointer finger and thumb, not giving her a chance to agree. “Now. For our first option. I’m thinking that whatever’s bothering you... has something to do with names…” He peeks an eye at her, and although slightly off put by how quickly he’s come to the point she still brings herself to nod. 

“And I always call you Dagger.” Garnet watches as his forehead crinkles with thought. “But you asked me to call you Garnet… and then Sarah… and right after we’d made passionate love too...” His eyes narrow and she feels her own do the same, likely for a different reason. “So my first guess on what’s been eating away at you is that… you, in fact, wanted to spice things up in the bedroom--”

“No.”

“--that you’ve been too embarrassed to bring it up--”

“Absolutely not.”

“--but you’ve actually been meaning to ask--”

“ _Zidane_.”

He folds, grin sneaking to his face. “Okay, okay, kidding.” She huffs and means to turn onto her back in full dismissal of him, but before she can a hand slips over her stomach and pulls her closer. “I’m just trying to lighten the mood….” Zidane chuckles, nuzzling against her neck in apology.

“I get it. But don’t.”

“Understood, your majesty,” He salutes, pulling back. “Though just putting it out there, if you ever wanted to try roleplay I wouldn’t be-”

Her hands, settled nicely at his hips, reach around to yank his tail.

“ _Yeesh!_ Alright, alright! You win, I yield.” 

“You’ve got one more chance before I turn over and go to bed.” 

  
He throws a hand up. “Okay, full seriousness now. I promise, Tantalus honor,” and he ends with the group’s salute. She hides a snort behind her hand and watches as he returns her poorly hidden laugh with a proud shine in his eyes.

And she considers that maybe lightening the mood really was his plan all along.

Though it shifts then as his face changes from a mischievous show into a look of contemplation.

“Alright, for real this time, here’s the second option - and it’s a question,” he says, crossing his arms and inspecting her rather seriously. Like this question is the one he’s been wanting and preparing to ask. “Would you rather I call you _Garnet_ instead of Dagger?”

Garnet feels her chest jump. 

“Of-” Of course not, she means to say. But her mouth falls open with only the first word and then stops. Zidane waits. “I… I don’t think so?”

“Okay then next question. Do you like it when I call you Dagger?”

“I do,” the answer breathes from her easily.

“Do you like when I call you Garnet… _Garnet?”_

An almost laugh exhales through her nose. “You hardly ever do.”

“But when I do…”

Garnet lets herself drift to the few times he’s said the name. Spare moments in the castle play for her - balls and dinners and political meetings - moments where he’d flash her a wink and grin before bowing to take her hand with the almost ridiculous utterance of " _Queen Garnet."_ Moments from their first meeting, before Dagger had been forged… and just minutes ago, as the answer to her request.

“I suppose I do. Like it I mean.”

“Well, what about Sarah?” Zidane asks, and Garnet’s feeling of lightness dissipates. She finds herself focusing on his collarbone instead of the piercing color of his eyes. “What if I started calling you that instead?”

Garnet considers the idea, as well as his neck. He doesn’t swallow as she does, his breathing relaxed as she draws an answer around the strange dryness in her throat. Imaging his voice calling after her with such a foreign name in the light of day in replacement of the other two.

“It would probably feel strange.”

“But did it?” He asks, and this time he does swallow. “I mean-- when I called you Sarah earlier was it--”

“No, it wasn’t,” she clarifies, a bit of heat flushing her chest, both from the memory of his voice and the feeling that it brought. A feeling no different than the other two. A feeling that should mean it wouldn’t be strange. Until it disappeared the moment she was no longer lost to him and was once again lost in circles.

“I just think that... if you were to start calling me Sarah… it’d be like you were calling to someone else. Not to me.”

“But you are _Sarah_ … just as much as you’re Dagger or Garnet,” he corrects. Even avoiding his eyes, she can feel them looking through her. Almost as if he can see the missing piece she knows is there.

Garnet sniffs.

“But am I?”

The hand beneath her pillow grasps the soft material in a fist. The name her mother gave her wraps around her in an uncomfortable grip, the thoughts of unreturned memories almost choking her. The idea that her hands likely once fisted the fabric of her mother’s dresses, back in days she would never fully recall, referred to by a name that she learned from a faded stone wall. One that could have remained forever forgotten.

Zidane’s lips hold a frown when she looks to him this time and he gives a soft touch that brushes down her arm. It’s enough encouragement for her to continue.

“It’s my name but… I can’t even bring myself to use it,” she confesses. “I’ve never really thought of myself as Sarah, so having someone else call me that, it still wouldn't be...” Her brows furrow. “Don’t you think… if you’re not using a name, or if you’ve _never_ used it-- is it really yours anymore?”

Zidane seems to think on her question before answering. “I think that depends if you want it to be. Do you want Sarah to belong to you? Do you _want_ me to call you Sarah?”

Garnet’s jaw tightens and her chest flares.

“I don’t know.” Her voice is wet as if she could cry despite no tears appearing. Zidane shuffles himself closer and she finds herself even more desperate to explain. “I just feel as if- there’s so much attached to it that I don’t want but there’s--” Her voice fades and she shakes her head.

“But there’s still parts that you do,” Zidane finishes for her. “Parts that are still _you_.”

She nods, “And yet I still can’t even _think_ of myself as Sarah.” Her hand slips from beneath the pillow to press against his chest, her eyes still dry and her heart wishing they would spill. Just a tear or two could relieve the abscess of grief inside her.

Zidane sighs, deep enough that she feels as if he’s breathing out the frustration that’s been swirling in her mind her entire life.

“Well… how about Garnet?” He begins again, bringing her mind away from swirling storms and distant songs and the constant reminder that Sarah never felt right, no matter how many times she’s said it, like a mantra in her head. Like trying to start a heart that never even began to beat. 

“Does _Garnet_ belong to you?”

The question seems simple, the confidence should bubble into throat. That besides Dagger, Garnet was always the other name she’d allowed herself to use. The one, even entangled by her title and duty, that still felt more natural aloud when spoken to others than Sarah ever did. 

Yet when she responds, the answer comes from somewhere deep within her mind. Ripping her open. Making something clear.

To her mother, she was the _second_.

“No.” 

It surprises him, as much as it does her.

“How could it?” She begins, voice slow, eyes burning, understanding coming to her as she speaks it to him. “It belonged to someone else. To the Garnet that came before me. How could it ever really belong to me?”

Zidane’s mouth tightens and seems to fight over something before it straightens in resolve. 

“Dagger...” 

“See! Just now you tried to call me Garnet, didn’t you,” she interrupts, pressing her fingertips into Zidane’s skin, watching the shadows of the room dance along his face, his expression almost startled. She can’t help but bask in the name he uses for her. Envy how easy it is for him to think of her like that. “Even if I asked you to call me something different, I’d always be _Dagger_ to you. You can’t just switch it around so easily in your head. And that’s why I can’t either.”

Zidane almost seems to stop breathing. “But it’s just a name. It wouldn't matter what I’d call you, I’d still be you.”

She shakes her head. “No, you don’t get it, Zidane. When I gave myself the name Dagger-- even though I thought of myself as Garnet, and Dagger was just a disguise, it always felt like--”

Her mouth turns and trembles, feeling as if it’s spinning around with her skin. Fighting to make a sound. “I thought of myself as Garnet even when I felt myself to _be_ Dagger, but now... after I learned the truth about my mother... I can’t even _think_ of myself as Garnet anymore. And it’s just so frustrating! Everyone else around me can use it freely-- they use it like they think that’s the only part of me-- or that it defines _me_ and whenever they do I don’t know why but I just can’t stop thinking about how it belonged to someone else. That it was a name never meant for me.”

Her throat makes a strange whistling croak when she rasps the final part out. Throwing the festering piece out of her own mouth.

“And now, when I was just starting to make it my own - it’s like it belongs to the throne more than it does to me!”

“But Dagger belongs to you.”

She stares back at him, tear dropping from her lashes, wondering when his grip became so tight around her shoulder. It indents her skin like his words, fighting so hard to push against the surface, to break through and comfort her. To tell her what is already buried in her heart. 

It sends her back to the grave of the late queen, the one who left her with the resolve to _become_ Garnet. To become Queen. And back to when she cut her hair and became Dagger - when he’d come to find her just as she’d decided to begin searching for herself. 

The uncertainty doesn’t leave her but the tears halt, and words to her problem come.

“It does. Dagger always _feels_ right,” she says relaxing in his hold. “Whenever you call me Dagger... It’s different from people calling me Garnet now or when I try to think of myself as Sarah. It’s easy to be _Dagger_ when I’m alone with you. And it’s easy when we...” She looks to him, feeling somehow more exposed than even her bare skin. 

She whispers the last part so only he can hear it.

Zidane’s jaw shifts. “Could that be why you wanted me to call you Sarah and Garnet?” 

“Maybe…” She swallows, her mind pulling the sound of his voice gasping on those names back to focus. “Hearing them outside my own head, when I was out of my head too... it felt different. The same way it does when you call me Dagger. Like those names were actually _me_ for once. Like I didn’t have to worry about which one I really _am_.”

“But they are you. All of them. It’s not one or the other.”

“But they’re all separate,” she counters. “I can’t be three different people at once, and I can’t think of myself that way either.”

“Why not?” He offers back. “You were Dagger _and_ Garnet before.”

“But not really. It always felt like I was one or the other,” she struggles. “That’s always how people see me, I’m always one or the other, I’m always Dagger, or Garnet, or—“ 

She’d say Sarah, but there’s no one left to think of her as such.

“It’s strange isn’t it?” Her question rings out. “I should be able to pick a name and be a single person. Dagger feels so right, so it should be me. It should be simple so why can’t I—“

_Why can’t I just be myself?_

“Should it?” 

Garnet looks up to find Zidane a mere inches from her face. 

“You know what?” He continues expression almost stern.

Under his gaze Garnet almost sinks back against her pillow, “What?” She questions and he seems to study her.

“I’ve decided,” he clarifies with absolutely no clarification and then out of seemingly nowhere he throws the blankets back, leaping from the bed and leaving her yelping in surprise at his naked backside. His tail nearly slapping her across the face.

“We’re gettin’ some air!” He declares jumping into his pants before tossing her the clothes she’d abandoned earlier. She inspects them before looking up just in time to see his head pop through the collar of his shirt. 

“Wait what-- Outside?” She tries to ask holding the nightgown over her chest, watching as he looks about the floor, looking for his belt she guesses as he fights to keep his pants up. “Why? What suddenly made you--”

“I think I finally get the problem,” he elaborates, belt in hand, slipping it around his waist, and then bounding down to grabs his boots. He hops to keep his balance as he pulls them on, voice slightly straining, as he continues, “But to solve it we gotta get outta here for a little while. I should’ve realized this earlier but no good introspection ever came from inside a stuffy castle bedroom.” 

Finally dressed he stands up straight and flashes her his signature grin. “Whaddya say, up for a late night adventure?”

Garnet slips her gown over her head and then steps off the bed. “Always,” she replies, smile coming to her. 

“Great!”

She shyly pulls on the rest of her garments as Zidane struts to the window and throws open the curtains, allowing the light of Gaia’s moons to completely capture every detail of the room. With his hands on his hips he nods to the night sky before pushing the window open. She jogs over to him, thankful her legs are no longer shaky from before. He turns to her, bows, and then offers his hand.

“My darling, may I be your escort on this fine moonlit night?”

Garnet, grasping the ribbon tie of her nightgown, looks down at him and the new pet-name in question. “Escort? Not kidnapper?”

Zidane peers up with a smile from behind his messy hair as she takes his hand. 

“Not this time.” 

He leads her after him until she’s standing on the frame of the window, looking out onto Alexandria, covered by the darkness of the night. It gives the little details of light across the kingdom the quality of stars.

“My love,” Zidane says, gaining her attention, to which she offers another perplexed expression at the nickname. Not that he gives her a chance to question him, as he steals a gasp from her instead as he pulls her up against him. “Hang on tight, okay?” 

“You’re not thinking of going into town are you?” She asks, feeling a bit hysterical, the edges of her nightgown blowing over the void of black that greets them instead of the distant ground. “Even if it’s late someone could be out and recognize us,” she reminds him, though she does comply, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“Which is why we’re not going into town,” he almost snorts and his grip around her waist shifts her around to his back where she latches on to him with her legs around his waist just before he jumps off the window and she squeals. The surprise, terror, and exhilaration mixing in her stomach until he grabs the vines along the castle wall. Her ankles lock around him, bare skin digging into his belt, and her fingers find purchase on his shirt. He laughs and starts their journey up. Inching away from the ground - the only destination she’d assume he’d pick.

She tries to stop herself from looking down to that shrinking destination below because she can’t bring herself to shut her eyes. The delight of watching their spontaneous adventure unfold more enticing than even the fear of falling - which could never happen, as long as Zidane is there.

So she distracts herself from looking down by looking up. Beyond the mess of blonde hair that the wind is lightly tossing in her face. Up until she sees the top.

She’s not sure what to feel when she sees the shine of Alexandria’s sword looming above the castle wall. 

Yet as Zidane scales the vines, eventually reaching their end where he takes to climbing by the spacing between the stones instead, her eyes never leave it. 

She can’t even bring herself to blink until they reach the flat rooftop where Zidane takes a moment to breathe and she removes herself from him, stepping forward so that she is but a speck in the monument’s shadow.

To her people she is—

Zidane chuckles, stretching his arms above his head.

“Not bad for a first time escort, right?”

Garnet watches him as he walks toward her and then past, closing in on the sword’s body. 

“The sword… is this where you wanted to bring me?”

Zidane stops beneath the shadow and looks up to the sword from over his shoulder. “Not really… I just figured we could use a change of scenery.” He looks back to her and smiles, the kind that crinkles his cheeks so that he can’t help but shut his eyes with it. She must give him a strange look because when he opens them he tilts his head with a little smirk and then beckons her closer. 

She obliges and closes the distance between them, her bare feet pressing against the ridges of the stone that paves the castle’s top. The walk returns her to the past. When she’d been a princess a day away from being Queen, called upon to bring forth the summon of her people, and then lost everything in the horrific blink of Invincible’s eye. 

Only her life had been saved because Zidane returned for her.

He signals her to stop when she’s only an arm’s length away from him, her feet wobbling slightly as her mind comes back to her.

And then he gets down on one knee. 

“Fair maiden, your beauty has struck me to my core, your voice has sent me soaring to the highest star, your brilliance as both a leader and a fighter has left me with the knowledge that your presence will be my downfall, unless you tell me--” With the refracted shine of the sword behind him, Zidane looks up at her, an expression of true adoration plainly there, even with the drama of his performance “--what are your names?”

He waits, hair blowing in the wind which she finally notices he never had the chance to tie back, the longer strands tangling above his shoulders while her dress ripples at her ankles. The scene throws her back to many moments of the past, too many to even process, and she must stand there for far too long, lost in them, hands to her chest, blinking back at him until she speaks an answer.

“Garnet.”

“Just Garnet?”

“Garnet... til Alexandros xvii.”

“ _Just_ Garnet til Alexandros xvii?”

Her entire face tips into confusion and slight exasperation.

“Zidane, what…?” 

Zidane raises an eyebrow to her. “I believe that is one of _my_ names milady, not your own. Though you could borrow it if you’d like.” 

Garnet finds herself shaking her head in confusion. “Zidane, what are you talking about?”

“Your names, dear lady, I want to know all your names. Garnet may be one but for a beautiful soul like yourself there must be countless others.” He throws his hands out wide. “There’s Sarah of course but what about your majesty? Or your highness? Or the captain of the pluto knight’s favorite, _Princess!”_ Garnet stands slack jawed as he goes on. “And what about everyone in Conde Petie who calls you lassie, or the Tantalus guys who named you a sister at arms. Or the dashing young man you’re always swooning over who calls you love, and darling, and dearest and so many others he’s yet to think of--”

He pauses just as her vision swirls.

“--or just, Dagger.” 

She clutches her chest.

“So, when we climbed up here… which of those did you use?” He asks.

“...I didn’t.” 

Zidane smiles getting to his feet again, the performance over. “Me neither. I didn’t think about how I’m Zidane to me but to the Tantalus guys I’m _bro_ , and to some old _friends_ I’m mendicant and thief, and to way too many people in this kingdom I’m suddenly _Master_ Zidane or how—“ his voice catches and he looks off to the side, out into the black of the horizon, attempting to play it off, she thinks. “Or how I might have been Gaia’s ‘Angel of Death’ when I was born.”

Garnet opens her mouth to interject but he continues.

“But you know, I didn’t think of any of that. I just climbed… and maybe thought about how soft your skin was too.”

She doesn’t even shake her head at that. She only stands there frozen, stuck in the spot she’d once been so many things at once. Struck with realization.

“I’m Zidane, but really most of the time, I just _am_. And that includes every part, every name, and whatever the hell else I want it to.”

She takes a step toward him, hand reaching out to catch his upper arm. “Does that include…”

“The Angel of Death thing? No. Not really. It’s a thought sometimes... but it’s not a part of me anymore. You’re the one who showed me that.”

“And when people call you Master-“

“Oh, that’s weird for sure. But also worth it sometimes. Like whenever Rusty’s forced to say it. He makes a pretty priceless face. You should look next time.”

“Maybe I’m overthinking things,” she says softly as he reaches out to push her fluttering hair behind her ear. 

“...I think you’re just figuring out who you are, Dagger. And… I don’t think you need to force yourself to find a single answer. Whoever you are, you just _are_ , no matter what that is to other people. I don’t think you need one word or name to explain it to yourself, as long as you’re happy as you are.”

Garnet hums. Her toes pressing against the stone of her castle. Her love for him expanding past the kingdom toward the sky. Her comfort in her own skin settling just a little more against her bones.

Maybe there’s no simple single piece to her ever growing puzzle.

Zidane looks down at her, his height no longer equal to her own since his return, his stature leaning slightly over her, but different than the looming figure of the sword behind him. Different than the phantom shadow of Alexander in her memory - taller than any other. There’s a comfort in each. Fitting well for each part of her. Though, Zidane, she thinks, fits for all of her.

Garnet tilts her head up at him. “Zidane?”

He tilts his own back, eyes blinking, “Yeah?”

She drops her fingers to his wrist to pull it towards her, taking his hand and setting it on her hip. “Could you say my name?”

He seems put on the spot for a brief second before he settles with a smile. 

“...which one?”

She laughs, “Whichever.”

She doesn’t hear the one he chooses, its sound muffled as she pulls his mouth to hers. And then both of them to the ground.

To him she is _herself_. And to him that may be Dagger.

But to herself, she supposes, she simply _is_.

Even if she doesn’t have a name for it.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow Garnet how come square lets you have three names??
> 
> Also, side note, gotta love how Garnet leaves her crown and summoner necklace behind when she runs to greet Zidane at the end of the game. It’s like she becomes just herself - which is best named by Dagger - to be with him.
> 
> But thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this quick oneshot!!! Please leave a kudos and/or comment to let me know if you liked it and what you thought! I'm always super appreciative of feedback!


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